I'll Be Right Beside You
by SandM1827
Summary: It was sixty years ago when Stiles stumbled into his life by accident and decided to never leave. In that time they'd battled a kanima, the alphas and a Darach. Derek had lost a sister and found one. He had left Beacon Hills and returned. He watched Stiles fight a darkness around his heart and win. They'd lost friends and family, parents and children. (Sterek)


Originally posted to AO3.

No beta, mistakes are mine.

Future Fic, Old Age, Established Relationship, Major Character Deaths.

* * *

It was heartbreaking to see him like this, but Derek did his best not to let it show when he entered the room. He'd spent a lot of time here over the previous years. The only difference was that before he'd be preparing to take Stiles home. It was different now.

There was no hopeful prognosis or a time frame for the hospital stay. There were talks of hospice and grief counseling. The last stroke had done the younger man in. Anyone who saw him knew he wouldn't be here much longer.

He didn't bother saying anything when he sat down in the free chair by the bed, speaking was hard for Stiles now. The left side of his body was paralyzed after his second stroke the year before. He got by on hand gestures and what little words he could get out. Derek often wondered how much went through Stiles mind, how much he wanted to tell them, but couldn't. Derek was one of few people who could usually decipher what Stiles was trying to say.

Like now, with Stiles lifting his right hand and pointing toward the sleeping woman curled up in the chair on the left side of his hospital bed. Derek knew he was wondering if she was okay, if she would be okay. He was worried about leaving her when she still needed him.

"She'll be okay, eventually. She's strong." He took a long hard look at Stiles daughter and remembered the little girl she used to be. "You did good, Stiles, you did really good."

And he had done good, they both had.

They'd fought battles and made peace treaties. They'd seen weddings and divorces. They'd witnessed births and funerals. Life and death…

"Any last words?" He asked dryly, not really expecting much of an answer.

"Sss-sour…" Stiles struggled with the words before they finally forced their way out of his mouth. "Sourwolf."

"Really?" Derek rolled his eyes dramatically. "That's what you're going with?"

He couldn't help but smile as he watched the corner of Stiles mouth tug up as far as they'd go. His eyes held the mischievous glint that Derek hadn't seen in a long time. If he looked closely enough he could see that sixteen year old boy he'd met in the woods, and not the haggard old man wasting away in front of him.

The happiness that Derek felt in that moment was soon replaced by sadness again when Stiles started to cough. It'd gotten worse each day. He'd had three strokes and a heart attack in the last five years. His health had gone downhill fast. Derek's health wasn't much better. He'd gotten forgetful and was no longer allowed to drive. And, as easy as it was to shift into a wolf, it was getting increasingly harder to return to human form.

"Breathe, Stiles." It was pointless to say, if Stiles could control his coughing fits he would. The look he sent Derek told him exactly what he thought of Derek's advice. "Do you want me to call the nurse?"

He knew the answer would be no, it usually was. Stiles didn't really care for the nurses the surrounded him anymore. Derek knew he hated the pitying looks they gave him. If Stiles hated anything it was pity.

"I can call in Demetri." Derek's son worked in pediatrics but came down often to make sure Stiles was getting the best care possible. "What do you need Stiles?"

When he was teenager Stiles talked more than anyone Derek had ever met, but a lot of what he actually wanted to say was hidden beneath all the nonsense. Now it was all in the eyes. One look into Stiles eyes told Derek what he needed to know.

"It's okay." He moved to stand next to the bed, leaning over to run a comforting hand through the other mans grey hair. "If you need to go, it's okay."

Again Stiles looked toward his daughter. If the Sheriff's jacket was anything to go by, she obviously came to the hospital straight from work. Stiles had given her that jacket when she'd taken over his position at the Sheriff's department. His father had given it to him for the same reason. Derek wondered if her son would receive the same jacket when she finally retired, he suspected he would.

"She'll never be ready. They can never be ready for death no matter how much we prepare them for it." They both knew it was true. They had lost people both suddenly, like Derek's family and Stiles son. And watched people take the long way out, like Peter and Stiles father.

The loss of Stiles son nearly killed him. The loss his father had driven him deep into the bottle that Derek hadn't been sure he could pull him back out. Without Laura by his side Derek probably wouldn't have survived losing his family. Peter's final death had affected Derek more than he'd liked to admit. Whether his uncle had found redemption or not, Derek had never forgiven him for what he'd done to Laura.

Stiles had been at his side through Peters death. The same way Derek had been there to care for Stiles during his time of need. Taking turns saving each other's lives had become taking turns helping the other one live when they didn't think they were capable of it anymore. It meant helping the other let go when they tried so hard to hold on.

"You won't be alone, okay?" Derek felt his body already start to change, take the form of a wolf. He leaned down and kissed Stiles cheek softly before looking deeply into his whiskey colored eyes. "I'll be right beside you."

He'd never shifted fully into a wolf, like his mother could, until today. His beta form had been as far as he could go, even as an Alpha. He knew what it meant that he do it now. The same thing it meant for Laura when he'd found her.

He jumped on the bed as gently as he could, careful not to jostle Stiles. It said something about their lives that Derek's new form didn't even spike Stiles heartbeat anymore. The man looked amazed as Derek nosed his way around the IV's and plugs, finding a comfortable place to lie beside the only real friend he'd ever known. The only one out of the Beacon Hills pack, excluding blood relations, that Derek could truly call his own.

It'd taken them twenty-five years to see what everyone else saw when they looked at them. It'd taken twenty-five years for them to realize why Matt had said they'd make a pretty good pair. Twenty-five years of knowing glances and things whispered about the Hale boy and the Sheriffs son but they'd gotten it eventually.

It made a bit of sense, he and Stiles excelled at doing things ass backward. They'd lived together, for years, _platonically_. They'd done the parenting thing together when Stiles ex walked out and Derek's had to be taken out. They'd been a family together and built a house together, before they finally understood what they really meant to each other. Hell, two of their children had married each other and given them a grandchild before they'd figured out how stupid they were for each other.

"Sourwolf…" The words were slurred and tired, barely a whisper, but Derek heard them, just like he'd heard them loud and clear the first time all those years ago.

It was sixty years ago when Stiles stumbled into his life by accident and decided to never leave. In that time they'd battled a kanima, the Alpha Pack, and a Darach. Derek had lost a sister and found one. He had left Beacon Hills and returned. He watched Stiles fight a darkness around his heart and win. They lost friends and family, parents and children.

Derek wasn't going to lose Stiles to. If Stiles was going then Derek would just have to go with him.

It didn't happen at the same time. They weren't in a bad romance novel. He felt Stiles take his last breath. He heard his heartbeat slow before ceasing completely. He nuzzled the neck of the one person in his life who'd stayed, he inhaled the scent he'd found comfort in so many times before. He let the lingering warmth of Stiles body ease him into a peaceful slumber of which he'd never awaken.

* * *

Instinctively Scott knew what he would find when he and Lydia entered the hospital. The banshee had called him earlier that day telling him she was feeling a pull toward the hospital, toward Stiles. The doctors had told them, when Stiles was first admitted, that it was just a matter of time. Still, knowing it was coming and seeing it firsthand, were two completely different things.

Seeing Stiles, his brother, lying there motionless made the Alpha want to howl out anguish. Seeing Derek, in full wolf form, beside him should have had Scott on his knees with grief over losing two of his pack mates, but it didn't. Knowing Derek was right there with Stiles to the end made it easier to accept somehow. Both Derek and Stiles had always been so afraid of being the last ones standing. It only made sense, that out of all their original pack members, they would be the first to die and that they'd died together.

"We should have expected this I guess." Lydia smiled softly at him, her voice low as to not wake their god-daughter who still slept soundly beside the hospital bed. "They always followed each other into battle, into family. Why not into death as well?"

"It's good, right?" He couldn't help but ask, he needed to know someone else felt the same way he did. "That they went together? They weren't alone?"

"Yeah, it's good."

* * *

The funerals are held on a Saturday the day of the full moon.

They bury Stiles beside his father, mother and son, and Derek in his families plot. The triskelion adorns both their headstones.

And that night, when the moon is high, the pack will run and howl and play all in memory of the members they'd lost.


End file.
